Clothing That Tells Your Story

Finishing Commissions

I’ve been spending the bulk of the last week or so finishing up commissions that are to be picked up in a few weeks at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire. Commissions are an interesting thing for me. For one thing, even more than the off the rack clothing I sell, they embody my “Clothing That Tells Your Story” slogan. I mean, what could tell your story better than a custom garment, made to not only your measurements, but sometimes your design? Of the two I just finished, one was a completely new sort of thing for me, and the other was a personalized variation on one of my regular garments.

Wizard!

First up, is this nifty pointed wizard hat. It’s a style of hat that I’d never worked on before, and while some parts were easy, others proved tricky. The easy bit was the brim — I was able to simply make that the same way I do for my flat caps, and that first step just breezed right along. The crown, though, was trickier. I knew that I had to find a way to let it maintain it’s upright cone shape, but I didn’t want to resort to something too stiff that would make it look silly. In the end, I used a layer of stiff felt, which seemed to give it structure, but still look a bit natural and soft.

And then there was that cone shape itself. It was much harder than I though it would be to create a pattern that would fold into a nice conical shape! My first two attempts were just awful, with a base that was all lopsided and would be great if you were portraying, say, a very drunk wizard. But that wasn’t really the goal here. Finally, on my third try, I managed to get the right amount of curve to create a level base of the right size, and we were in business! Now that I know how this shape works, I suspect future wizard hats (if I decide to make any in the future) will be much smoother projects.

Buttoned Frock Coat

Next up, this fabulous variation on my regular Frock Bodice. The customer tried one on at a show, and liked the general cut and how it fit her body — but wanted some variations for her own personal style. She asked for set-in sleeves, rather than my usual tie-on sleeves, and a button closure instead of lacing. And asked that we leave off the picadills at the shoulder (which made sense, since their usual purpose is to help hide the sleeve ties).

The jacket itself is all black — the outer fabric has a great textured pattern to it, and it’s lined in black linen. But that’s a LOT of black, and I felt like it needed to be broken up a bit. I remembered that the customer’s bodice was a dark red, so I used buttons that had a dark red stone in the center, nice large ones that would pop against the black fabric. And then I took it a step further, and added buttons to hold the cuffs of the sleeves in place. I had those same dark red ones in a smaller size, and they worked perfectly as cuff buttons.

In the end, I’m really pleased with this coat — it’s only the second one I’ve made that buttons, and it makes me think maybe I should do some more like this when I have some time.